A Five Year Olds' View On Relationships

Many things cross my mind when I think about relationships in China. For one, their television depiction of them (many times from the Ming Dynasty- which was the last dynasty) is difficult to even sit through. Even if you do understand what they are saying it’s asininely melodramatic. The shows taking place in modern times are even worse. The acting is just awful and for some reason the girl and or the boy are always dying in the hospital from minor injuries. In the US there are plenty of shows that are terrible and don’t even get me started with “reality” TV but these take the cake.
So, I’m teaching my little guys (3-5 years old) and I’m passing out their coloring books for coloring time. One of the things we do is to hand them the book and say, “Here you are.” So that we can evoke the response… hopefully in English “thank you.” On this particular day I handed the book off to one of my tiniest sweeties and my “Here you are” was followed with “Thank you, 老公 (which is pronounced Laogong) "Laogong?" i thought? She giggled and ran off with her coloring book eager to color the word of the day which was toothbrush. A vocabulary word that very unfortunately many small children here in China can not relate to. But that is another blog. A bit puzzled by this and thinking that I heard something wrong I handed off another book to another tiny tot and again was responded to with “Thank you, Laogong.” I looked up to my TA (teachers assistant) with the look of “did I hear that right” and she looked at me and said, “Yes, she called you husband.” Immediately I thought to myself that that was one of the cutest things in the world and immediately give my little student a big smiling hug and said think you! (because you can actually hug your students in this country without the ridiculous assumption that you are some kind of pederast.)
After class my TA had come to me with a smile. Indeed it was cute that a little 4 year old said, “thank you, husband.” She said lately she had been hearing it more and more in the kindergartens and they must be picking it up from the melodramas on TV. Wherever they picked it up from it was precious and thus makes my blog.